As John Swinney defends his independence strategy at the SNP conference, Brian Taylor asks how the package will go down with voters

Do I think John Swinney will surmount an internal challenge to his independence strategy at the SNP conference in Aberdeen? Yes, I do. Do I also think that the First Minister would prefer to appeal to Scottish voters rather than debate process with discontented elements of his own party? Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Ideally for Mr Swinney, this Aberdeen debate would not be necessary. His entire party would applaud his plan to seek an SNP majority at Holyrood as a mandate for a further independence referendum. How wise, they would say. Such sagacity. However, politics is seldom like that. Especially within the SNP on the topic of independence where, understandably, zeal sometimes subsumes strategy.

So Mr Swinney will aim to face down those critics who say “enough with the referendum route”. Who argue that a cumulative majority of votes on the list for all those parties or candidates who favour independence should be sufficient in itself to open negotiations for ending the Union. In short, a de facto referendum.

You could say this is Mr Swinney’s Clause IV moment. Except it’s not. He does not face anything like the degree of entrenched opposition which confronted Tony Blair’s determination to rewrite the central objective of the Labour Party. For me, it more resembles the National Council gathering of the SNP in Perth on the 2nd of August 1997. (Yes, I was there, broadcasting to an astonished nation.)

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